PhD defence: Catherine Casler

In order to obtain the PhD degree, Catherine Casler has submitted her thesis entitled:

Reconstruction in Strategy and Organization: For a Pragmatic Stance

This thesis seeks to reconstruct strategy and organization according to a newly elaborated pragmatic stance. By way of example, Part I analyses two sub-fields ostensibly devoted to contrasting approaches to strategy – strategic management and strategy-as-practice – in order to show commonality in their attitudes of investigation despite other epistemological, methodological and theoretical differences. This points to a broader preoccupation with a certain mode of theory development predominant across much of strategy and organizational research, which orients attention away from concrete organization. Arguing that the plural nature of personhood and the cultivation of practical-ethical conduct are centrally implicated in this preoccupation, as well as a number of other contemporary shortcomings and intractable field-level debates, Part II of the thesis develops a positive reconstruction of the field according to a pragmatic stance, drawing principally on the work of John Dewey and Max Weber. The thesis then exemplifies this pragmatic stance through a re-appraisal of the classic organizational practitioner-theorist Chester I. Barnard. The thesis concludes by drawing implications of a pragmatic stance for research, practice, and management education.

Primary Supervisor:
Professor Paul du Gay

Department of Organization

Copenhagen Business School

Assessment Committee:

Associate Professor Karen Boll (Chair)

Department of Organization

Copenhagen Business School

Professor Leo McCann

School of Management

University of York

Professor Stephen Cummings

School of Management

Victoria University of Wellington

Thesis:
The thesis is available here

Reception:

The audience is invited to join the defence meeting via the same link at 15.15 o’clock, where a virtual reception will be hosted.

*Please note in connection with the online defence that the microphone and camera of all spectators must be turned off!